When Vickie Wang, an emerging comedic talent, takes her platform in the Big Apple, she's not just thinking about what humor to deliver. Additionally, she carefully considers which topics to avoid. “I refrain from directly attacking the administration,” she stated. Or if she does, she ensures it isn't recorded for social media. “I'd never publish openly content in which I directly criticize the government … I think it's a learned behavior acquired back home.”
The comedian, thirty-nine, resided in Shanghai for nearly ten years, departing in that year. By 2025, she moved to America. Upon arrival, she dove into an intense period of “overindulging on democracy,” going to talks, demonstrations, and delving into New York’s library system.
However over the past year since Donald Trump was elected for the second time, there's been a “palpable change” in the atmosphere, she notes. “In China, I understood the boundaries, whereas here I find myself on unstable ground.”
Wang’s fears reflect an emerging climate in the US which numerous individuals from China, or those who have lived in China, perceive as eerily familiar. Enemies are ostracised. The leader expects total allegiance. Reporters are targeted. Institutions are attacked.
The president has not been shy about his admiration for China's leader, the nation's authoritarian figure. He has described him as a “great guy”. When they reached a brief ceasefire in the trade war on Thursday, the camaraderie between both figures of nations with vastly different governance models was evident. Following years of optimism in the US that improved relations with China could assist the rising power to liberalise, under Trump 2.0, it seems as if the US is being pulled in the Chinese direction, rather than the other way around.
“America is experiencing a period of cultural revolution,” stated a constitutional law expert, a professor at Peking University. “The top leader, Donald Trump, is trying to mobilise the grassroots to sideline or undermine established figures … reminiscent of what happened in the country decades past.”
Ever since the administration initiated the so-called Department for Government Efficiency, or Doge, on the Washington bureaucracy at the start in office, many in China see US politics via the perspective of the Cultural Revolution. Be it the rallying of the youth to execute the leader’s will, or cleansing organizations of perceived enemies, the president as viewed from China has brought Mao-style chaos to America, albeit without equivalent degrees of violence.
But since the upheaval of the initial period under Trump subsided, an unfamiliar, different kind of climate has emerged in the US, which in different ways also feels recognizable to many Chinese individuals.
‘The Beacon Is Less Bright’
The most profound similarity between the US today and China is the suppression on open expression.
A former police officer, now a Chinese Communist party critic, ended up in the eye of a storm recently, the likes of which he’d only previously experienced in China. He resided in the US for several years, having fled China due to pressure from the authorities.
In September, after the death of Charlie Kirk, Deng tweeted that the individual was a “scumbag”. Like people across the US – many of whom lost their jobs for expressing criticism regarding him – Deng faced a huge backlash. His family was doxed and he was accused of espionage seeking to create division.
“This incident was a real shock. I hadn't thought such a thing could happen in America – what typically happens in a repressive state,” Deng said.
Deng’s backlash originated from fellow social media users, rather than the state, but that kind of public monitoring bears similarities with China.
“In terms of targeting those who disagree and starting to surveil open discourse about issues that are sensitive … It's appearing here,” noted Maria Repnikova, a scholar at a US university. “This is that you see in China now as too,” she added, adding that concerns are rising in the US of students reporting on educators, a type of monitoring promoted by the CCP.
Zhang, the legal expert, explained that liberal Chinese intellectuals like himself once turned to America for ideals, in part because public debate on internal affairs in the country is dangerous. But now, “America is no longer some kind of god for Chinese liberals. The US's reputation has worsened across the board.”
“We once viewed America as the beacon of constitutional democracy, but since the new administration, that guide appears dimmer”.
Progressive Chinese, typically, behind closed doors, skeptical about the nation's governance, are increasingly finding it more acceptable than the US's, he stated. “It’s sort of difficult to acknowledge this … but post-COVID, the government seems to be doing correct policies in improving the environment and developing electric cars and investing in hi-tech,” he noted, while “the West, as represented by America, seems to be in decline.”
The Trump administration’s purchase of stakes in American firms has also drawn parallels with the East, where the distinction between state and private industry is frequently unclear.
Recently, authorities stated it would become a shareholder in a startup focused on mineral refinement, after taking comparable shares in additional firms it considers vital to national security. These moves have left some investors concerned that America is embarking on a fresh phase of government meddling in private industry.
Yet, there remain significant distinctions between the US under Trump and China. Last month, multiple media outlets including the Guardian refused to sign to a defense department rule that demanded they only report on government-authorised news. US courts have halted or reversed many of presidential measures, an action that would be impossible in the nation's CCP-controlled legal system.
Isaac Stone Fish, the founder of a consulting firm, a China-focused advisory firm, said: “The United States could descend into its gravest challenge of its history, orders of magnitudes worse than currently, and it will still be freer, more open, and liberal than China under Xi.”
Zhang notes that although many intellectuals in the country were shocked to see US universities yield to official requests concerning diversity and inclusion practices and open discourse on campus, in the East, the top universities are all state-owned inherently. Administrators, who are selected by the state, “have no liberty of saying no. They can’t afford defy orders.”
Nevertheless, people in the US are starting to adopt measures previously associated with more authoritarian countries. One professor at an American college who was previously outspoken on bilateral matters refused to be interviewed for this piece. He stated: “The truth is, I fear of the censorship in the US: I genuinely feel less afraid criticizing China's leader now than say anything bad
